First, I move out of the city and now I’ve gone out and bought myself a pick-up truck. Yep, a real life, honest-to-god pick-up. What in the hell is the world coming to? I kid of course. This is probably a fairly normal advance for a serious motorcyclist. First comes the bike – your weapon of choice for curvy roads – and then you progressively add to your gear collection, until you wake up one morning and realize that in order to continue to make forward progress in your quest for speed you need a way to haul all this crap around town. Hence the need to fill the last remaining void in the sportbike food chain.
The reality is that this automotive conversion has been on my mind for quite some time. Over the past several years the lack of a truck to transport the Ducs has been a real pain in the ass to deal with and has resulted in spending way to much money with car rental companies. And lets be honest who really likes spending their money with Hertz or Enterprise when it could be headed out the door for more motorcycle toys?
I should point out that I’ve been slacking on posting anything on this subject because of the various issues involved. What issues you ask? Well, good question. In order to facilitate a cost effective deal, I had to say goodbye to my vehicle of choice for the past eleven years – my 1973 Toyota FJ-40 Landcruiser.
I’m sure for some swapping out an old, rudimentary, rusty and well-worn vehicle for a relatively modern mode of transportation – and one that actually has air conditioning – wouldn’t seem like a momentous ordeal. But it was for me. To understand that you have to realize that the FJ was the car I literally grew up in. It was my life for many, many moons. I learned not only about on and off-road driving, non-synchronous transmissions, suspensions and the rational behind power steering (it didn’t have any), but also about how to love and treat a motorized vehicle.
Seeing the cruiser head down the road with a new owner behind the wheel was anything but easy. I never honestly thought I’d ever let go of the FJ because of what it meant to me on a personal level. When I was fifteen I found it parked on the side of the road with a for sale sign and a thrown engine rod. The following eighteen months were spent painstakingly rebuilding it, until one day we finally twisted the key and heard it fire up for the first time. Nothing teaches you about cars like rebuilding one and the FJ was no exception to the rule. It was easy to work on, things weren’t buried behind technology – hell, it had no technology. The most advanced part was the CD Player. The rest was a 1950’s design repackaged for a 1970’s world.
As I’ve thought about what I might want to say in this post, a number of titles for this entry have crossed my mind but none seem to adequately sum up the various feelings that the two embedded photos in this entry create. On one hand I feel very sad to see something that was so instrumental in my life leave for good. I always thought it would have been a real kick to keep the FJ for my eventual kids and I held on it for so long that the cruiser simply became a part of my personal lexicon. It was a rather defining characteristic of my life for the past decade: It was always there and always rumbling.
Yet holding on to it for the last several years has been a real strain in many ways. It wasn’t a great date vehicle. The heater was piss poor. And slow speed maneuvers were athletic adventures to say the least. But it did have character.
The truck on the other hand has no semblance of feeling. It is relatively soulless. It is merely a tool for moving the bikes from Point A to Point B. Now it does that exceptionally well, but with little chatter. I made the decision to swap rides for all the right reasons and thus far have been extremely pleased with how it all worked out, but there’s no logic in the emotion of saying goodbye to a car or truck you loved. It will always be there, always be with me, but never feel quite the same again. While I greatly respect the truck for everything that it offers – the convenience, the space, the ride height, the full size bed – saying goodbye to the FJ was in effect seeing the last vestiges of my youth vanish before my eyes. What a strange, strange feeling…
Saying Goodbye to The FJ
First, I move out of the city and now I’ve gone out and bought myself a pick-up truck. Yep, a real life, honest-to-god pick-up. What in the hell is the world coming to? I kid of course. This is probably a fairly normal advance for a serious motorcyclist. First comes the bike – your weapon of choice for curvy roads – and then you progressively add to your gear collection, until you wake up one morning and realize that in order to continue to make forward progress in your quest for speed you need a way to haul all this crap around town. Hence the need to fill the last remaining void in the sportbike food chain.
The reality is that this automotive conversion has been on my mind for quite some time. Over the past several years the lack of a truck to transport the Ducs has been a real pain in the ass to deal with and has resulted in spending way to much money with car rental companies. And lets be honest who really likes spending their money with Hertz or Enterprise when it could be headed out the door for more motorcycle toys?
I should point out that I’ve been slacking on posting anything on this subject because of the various issues involved. What issues you ask? Well, good question. In order to facilitate a cost effective deal, I had to say goodbye to my vehicle of choice for the past eleven years – my 1973 Toyota FJ-40 Landcruiser.
I’m sure for some swapping out an old, rudimentary, rusty and well-worn vehicle for a relatively modern mode of transportation – and one that actually has air conditioning – wouldn’t seem like a momentous ordeal. But it was for me. To understand that you have to realize that the FJ was the car I literally grew up in. It was my life for many, many moons. I learned not only about on and off-road driving, non-synchronous transmissions, suspensions and the rational behind power steering (it didn’t have any), but also about how to love and treat a motorized vehicle.
Seeing the cruiser head down the road with a new owner behind the wheel was anything but easy. I never honestly thought I’d ever let go of the FJ because of what it meant to me on a personal level. When I was fifteen I found it parked on the side of the road with a for sale sign and a thrown engine rod. The following eighteen months were spent painstakingly rebuilding it, until one day we finally twisted the key and heard it fire up for the first time. Nothing teaches you about cars like rebuilding one and the FJ was no exception to the rule. It was easy to work on, things weren’t buried behind technology – hell, it had no technology. The most advanced part was the CD Player. The rest was a 1950’s design repackaged for a 1970’s world.
As I’ve thought about what I might want to say in this post, a number of titles for this entry have crossed my mind but none seem to adequately sum up the various feelings that the two embedded photos in this entry create. On one hand I feel very sad to see something that was so instrumental in my life leave for good. I always thought it would have been a real kick to keep the FJ for my eventual kids and I held on it for so long that the cruiser simply became a part of my personal lexicon. It was a rather defining characteristic of my life for the past decade: It was always there and always rumbling.
Yet holding on to it for the last several years has been a real strain in many ways. It wasn’t a great date vehicle. The heater was piss poor. And slow speed maneuvers were athletic adventures to say the least. But it did have character.
The truck on the other hand has no semblance of feeling. It is relatively soulless. It is merely a tool for moving the bikes from Point A to Point B. Now it does that exceptionally well, but with little chatter. I made the decision to swap rides for all the right reasons and thus far have been extremely pleased with how it all worked out, but there’s no logic in the emotion of saying goodbye to a car or truck you loved. It will always be there, always be with me, but never feel quite the same again. While I greatly respect the truck for everything that it offers – the convenience, the space, the ride height, the full size bed – saying goodbye to the FJ was in effect seeing the last vestiges of my youth vanish before my eyes. What a strange, strange feeling…
Site Supporters
Categories